shook
me warmly by the hand and said, without further parley: "Your luck's
out. The bottom has fallen out of the diamond market since you bought
that parcel from me. You can buy the identical goods to-day at
twenty-five per cent below the prices you paid me. Can you stand a loss
like that without making a fuss about it?"
"It
is bad news," I said calmly, for a man who has been knocked out by a
hundred-pound weight is quite calm in a manner of speaking, "but I have
four months in front of me and the East is a big place. In any case, I
now have a good reason for not sleeping at night."
"Do you know what I would do in your place?" he asked.
"Are
you going to give me some good advice," I said with a wry smile, "or do
you propose buying the goods back from me at a discount?"
"No," he said, "I'm merely asking what you think I would do."
I
pondered. "If one were sure, could be sure, that there would be no
further drop in price, the obvious thing to do would be to buy another
one hundred thousand pounds' worth of brilliants at to-day's prices and
strike an average, always provided that one had the cash or the credit
and a market to absorb the goods."
"Precisely,"
he said, "and that was what I was going to suggest to you. I have
another series of goods similar to those you bought of me. It does not
come to a hundred thousand pounds, but close enough to sixty thousand.
I advise you to buy; there will be no further drop; if any-
